Sleep Disorders
by xinde
Summary: L and Light are two geniuses that differ from most people in every possible way. For starters, the average person wouldn't suspect their boyfriend of having an affair with a death god.


**Sleep Disorders**

Characters: L, Light, Misa, Rem, Task Force

Rating: T, yaoi

A/N: This was supposed to go in the _Cracks _collection, but then it was too long and even more nonsensical than usual. It's not particularly funny, as in no haha-burst-out-laughing-roll-on-floor, more a subdued giggle-snort kind of funny. Ah well, enough disclaimer. I cannot attest to the veracity of the scientific facts presented within. Just pretend I know what I'm talking about.

I don't own Death Note, yay.

XXX

"I'm afraid I shall have to leave you here, Amane-san, under restraints," L announced as he withdrew a long pair of handcuffs from his seemingly bottomless pockets.

"…Eh?! Why?" Misa protested the chain being wrapped around her and tying her to a chair.

"As the suspected second Kira, I cannot allow you to be at the scene when we apprehend Higuchi."

"We'll be back soon, Misa," Light reassured his girlfriend. "Think of this as a lesson in patience."

"Misa-Misa is patient!" Misa squealed. "She will wait for Light as long as she has to! She will never get tired of waiting!"

For once, Light was thankful for Ryuuzaki's fixation with chains; they prevented Misa from glomping him. L scowled at the pair currently delaying his departure.

"_We _will not be leaving anytime soon, Light-kun. _I _will be leaving, and you, as a suspect, will be staying here."

Ignoring Misa's chirps of delight and Light's irritated mutterings, he proceeded to wrap their own infamous chain around the hapless boy in a manner that would have made him drool if they'd been alone in their bedroom together.

XXX

L watched in fascination as Chief Yagami and Mogi fell on their posteriors and started bleating about a monster located a ways from Higuchi's car, from the direction of their gazes. He ordered for the notebook to be brought to the helicopter.

L had been shocked, as in eyes wide (wider than usual), mouth agape, heart pounding, twice in his life. Once, when the second Kira had insinuated the existence of death gods on TV, and once when he found out that blue moons didn't exist except in a figure of speech.

(To be fair, he had been six and very disappointed to learn that the astronomical phenomenon was a farce.)

The third time was upon him. He gazed, stupefied, at the behemoth of craggy bones towering over the scene. It looked on passively as Higuchi was hustled away to a squad car.

"Gods of death like apples," he murmured. Then he laughed hysterically, because the very idea of such a dry figure consuming a juicy apple and crumbling into mud both frightened and appealed to him. The Kira case had taken its psychological toll.

XXX

"I want to touch it," Light whined.

"You may not, Light-kun."

"But I _want _to."

"How _old _are you, Light-kun?"

"Old enough to know what I want and whether or not I deserve it."

"Well, you don't. If you are that desperate to see what the death god looks like, you can ask Matsuda to draw a picture."

"I'll draw it! I'll draw it!" Matsuda babbled from his seat at the work table. He cast about for the nearest blank paper, which happened to be in a little black book.

"Do _not _use the Death Note paper!" L hissed as he yanked the note away from Matsuda, whose figurative feathered hat drooped, crestfallen at being denied the chance to demonstrate his artistic abilities. "Here," he ripped the first page off the newest report on criminals killed by Kira and shoved it at Matsuda. "Draw on that."

L had been irritable and jumpy ever since getting back from Higuchi's capture; anyone would find themselves in a similar state if they constantly saw a death god in the corner of their eye. The other task force members were unnerved by it as well, but not to the extent that L felt. L had also continued the regime of handcuffs, claiming that until Light was proven to _not _be Kira, Higuchi being proven to be Kira was not sufficient evidence to declare his innocence. L had not permitted him to touch the note since he feared it might reawaken whatever part of Light's personality included Kira. Yet another plague was added to L's laundry list: Light-kun would not stop insisting on touching the notebook so he could see what everyone else saw.

There were serious problems accompanying Rem's presence as well: the shinigami might have pieces of the note stashed in crevices of its strange body and use them to contact Light or Misa. Both Kira suspects were under 24-7 surveillance, as always, but what could humans do against such a creature?

Thus it was that L worried and worried, consuming more and more sugar in increasingly purer forms, and stayed awake longer and longer to watch over Light, Misa, and Rem. The Kira case took its physical toll as well.

XXX

"This can't go on," Soichiro whispered to Aizawa, glancing at where L crouched on his chair, attention divided between six video screens, his coffee, a report pinched delicately in one hand, the phone pressed to his ear with the other, and Rem, who was staring at nothing over by the stairwell. "He's overworking himself even more than before."

"Yes, he's certainly worse," Aizawa replied in equally conspiratorial tones.

"And here I was thinking that landing Higuchi in jail would solve all our problems," Matsuda half wailed.

"Baka! Don't be so loud!" Ide scolded. "L has enough troubles without you causing a disturbance."

With all the task force whispering behind L's back, Mogi excepted, it was plain that no work was getting done, which presented even more of a setback to the overstressed group. The hour was late, and Light felt the need for drastic action. As soon as L finished his call to the president of a distant nation, Light stood over him menacingly.

"Ryuuzaki, I cannot allow you to continue working tonight," he said, arms crossed with finality, daring L to contradict him. The task force behind him nodded in approval and awe at his courage.

L looked at him through bleary eyes. "Very well, Light-kun. We shall retire then. Everyone, please consider yourselves finished for the night as well." With that, he stood with some stiffness from crouching so long and began walking towards the door. Light did not follow at first, struck by how ironically easy it had been to persuade L to go to bed.

"You're really… done for tonight? You're just going to sleep like that?" he asked.

"Now that Light-kun mentions it, there is some work I still need to do… but that can be done in the bedroom," L said blandly, the way he always talked when discussing such… _matters._

Now Light felt excited. He congratulated himself on his two-pronged victory, both in getting L to bed and getting him away from Rem, whom he suspected was fast becoming an unhealthy obsession for L.

The first thing Light did when they reached their room was do a star jump into their king-sized bed and look at L expectantly. The first thing L did was look up at the ceiling. Or rather, the video screens that had been installed on the ceiling, from wall to wall, covering every square inch.

"Ah, good, Watari has done a thorough job as always," he muttered his approval.

"Why have you installed these surveillance feeds?" Light demanded. He knew better than to think that L had placed the screens in a convenient location for their consumption of porn.

"They are for work," L said, taking his jeans off and unlocking the handcuffs so they could take their shirts off.

"But you said you weren't going to do any more work tonight!" _At least, not the kind of work that would be documented on the Kira case… I was thinking more along the lines of working on _me_, _Light wished wistfully.

"I am going to sleep and work at the same time," L said as if it were perfectly clear. As Light remained in the dark, he explained further, "Scientific evidence shows that we subconsciously record at least part of what we hear in our sleep and retain it as memories for when we awake. I wish to test the possibilities of that occurring with vision, and it seemed most apt to do so what with the increased security feeds throughout the building. I will sleep with my eyes open, as you have known me to do on occasion, mostly because I need to keep an eye on Rem's behavior."

Light's jaw dropped, but L did not notice; he had already flopped onto the bed, turned on the video feeds, and was on his way to wide-eyed oblivion. Light lay silently, fuming at this Rem who had monopolized his partner's attention even in sleep. What kind of a flighty temptress was this Rem? Matsuda's drawing hadn't been exactly flattering, but Light supposed L's aesthetic preferences might be more liberal than he thought. Apparently Rem was female, although why that should add to her favor in L's eyes, Light could not fathom, because L was _his. _L liked _him, _as in H-I-M, not H-E-R.

_I will not lose to some alien who barely even knows L, _Light vowed. _I shall persevere. I know I shall triumph._

What he did not seem to know was how uncannily similar his mantra sounded to Misa's at the moment.

XXX

"Mmmmffghhrrrrssssssppp," L snored gently. Light sighed as he watched his partner sleep. He often talked in his sleep, and Light eagerly awaited those hazy revelations. Perhaps he would learn… of L's undying love for him!

He had closed L's eyes earlier, which was no simple task. He had to resort to shining a laser pointer in the insomniac's open, frozen eyes, constricting his pupils until they could close no further, and then relentlessly tugging on his eyelids until his eyes closed completely. Now his eyeballs roamed uneasily beneath their lids, and Light wondered what L was dreaming of. Surely… and now doubt clawed at him; surely L was not enjoying dreams of scandalous desires, of frenzied elopements, of secret trysts with a death god, no less!

_Be reasonable, Light, _his inner self reprimanded him. _No detective in his right mind would choose a death god over you._

L continued his sleep-mumbling, and Light verged on falling asleep himself without hearing the words escape from his significant other's lips:

"Rem… sleep… Rem… I… please…"

Light shot up in bed, instantly awake and suspicious. L was talking about Rem and sleeping. He seemed to be pleading, to whom and to what end? No doubt lay in Light's mind that L was subconsciously enticing the death god to sleep with him. He grit his teeth in fury and steeled himself. This could go no further. Reaching over, he shook L roughly until the detective awoke with a start.

"Explain yourself, Ryuuzaki!" Light shrieked.

"Hmm?" the detective asked sleepily.

"Do not take me for a fool! You have as good as admitted your treason before the high court!"

"Please, Light-kun, not so hard on my ears," L complained. "And you're hardly a sight for sore eyes at the moment either."

Light indeed looked quite mad. He was nearly spitting with rage, nostrils wide and lips quivering, his eyes shot with a look of utter derangement.

"Do not change the subject! What do you have to say for yourself? You have just testified against yourself and pled guilty to infidelity of the most depraved sort!"

"Huh? Light-kun, what in the world -"

"Do not pretend ignorance! Just now, you were softly moaning Rem's name and begging for her to come to your bed! While I am still in it, might I add!"

L was speechless. He most certainly had not been having any erotic dreams about the death god. He glanced upwards and saw that Rem was on the second floor, brooding alone as usual. "Light-kun, let me explain. I was having a nightmare."

"Oh _indeed_," Light drooled sarcasm, "a nightmare that soon turned into a lush fantasy of unmatched pleasurable proportions -"

"I was having a nightmare," L continued loudly, "about the night of the arrest. I was terrified by the appearance of Rem, which was not at all normal, because my subconscious rather altered her physical aspects."

"I should think so; according to Matsuda's drawing, she is currently so hideous that there is no chance you would wish to seduce her."

"I do not wish to seduce Rem!" L griped, almost at his wit's end. "In my nightmare recollection, she looked much the same as she does in real life, except that she was made of all my worst fears. Instead of bones, her body appeared to be constructed of folded pieces of paper from the note, covered in names. Her earrings were each made of one of the separated rings of these handcuffs," he jiggled the chain between them for emphasis. "And most horribly of all, her body seemed to be dripping cupfuls of sugar like dust, dissipating onto the ground before they could make it into my teacup."

_That is truly a nightmare for Ryuuzaki, _Light thought. _Criminals being killed, separation from me, and loss of sugar. _Boosted in confidence, he inquired, "Yet still, that does not explain why you were calling her name."

"I wasn't calling her name," L said. "I was talking about Rem sleep. You know, R-E-M sleep. REM stands for rapid eye movement. If you've studied psychobiology, this is the stage of sleep in which one is closest to waking, and in which one often speaks as if one were awake. I was trying to reassure myself that I was in REM sleep, therefore I was dreaming and not experiencing real life."

Light could not speak.

"I am not in love with Rem. I have no desire to have romantic or sexual exploits with her. She merely has the misfortune of sharing her name with a stage of the sleep cycle."

Light could not speak. Suddenly, he pulled the blankets up over his head and wriggled deeper into the cocoon, hiding from L.

"…Light-kun? What are you doing?"

The Light-shaped mass of blankets near the center of the bed appeared to be shaking.

"Light-kun? It's ok. We've talked our problems out, like good couples do. We've resolved our differences. You can come out now. Please. Please come out of there, Light-kun. I'll give you a make-up kiss. And a hug. And cuddling overtime. I mean it. I'll give you -"

"For shame…" a cry that sounded strangely like sobbing emanated from the blankets.

L frowned. Light usually didn't turn down offers of affection. What was he so upset about? Everything was supposed to be okay now.

"For shame…"

This was definitely abnormal behavior for Light-kun. L was about to burrow down into the blankets and find out what was wrong, when Light suddenly bellowed, "I accused Ryuuzaki of two-timing me with a god of death! What kind of a pathetic self-image do I have?!"

_Oh dear._

With a sigh, L burrowed under the blankets to join Light-kun. After a lot of moaning and creaking springs, Light-kun's self-image was considerably restored. They finally came up for air, and as soon as L had drawn a fresh breath, he said, "Up ten percent, Light-kun."

"What?" Light asked, snuggling his face into L's neck.

"Kira percentage."

"…for being a responsibly jealous lover?"

"…I guess you could say so."

"You are so unromantic, Ryuuzaki."

"I try my best, Light-kun," L said, nibbling at Light's ear. He slung an arm around the newly angry boy's waist and fell asleep.

XXX

In the next room, Rem quietly drifted away through the wall, where she had been listening unnoticed for most of the conversation.

_Humans are so… ugly. And yet they think _me _unsightly._

Rem sniffed, offended. Watari had secretly installed a camera in L and Light's room along with the video screens. Rem floated off in search of the tapes that he was sure to have documenting their activities.

XXX

A/N: Yeah, more disclaiming; this isn't my normal level of intellectuality. I swear I'm not insane. Hehhhh. :P Thanks for reading, anyways!


End file.
